Effect of illness perception on improving asthma symptoms with omega-3 fish oil therapy: Pre-post design

ABSTRACT

Perception of asthma can affect the patient's self-management and outcome treatment. The outcome is not onlydetermined by symptoms, but also by illness perception. Omega-3 in fish oil has a potential effect on asthma. Thestudy aimed to determine the effect of illness perception on improvement symptoms with fish oil, measured byAsthma-Control-Test (ACT). This research was pre-post test design and purposive sampling, used 1 g daily fish oilthen followed-up after 4 weeks, conducted in March 2017–January 2018. The relationship between ACT value andillness perception using chi square test. The study sample consisted of 26 patients. The effectiveness of omega-3showed that there was significant difference of symptoms after the therapy. It can be concluded there was effect ofillness perception relationships related to symptoms. Most of the highest illness perception regarding symptoms andsymptoms related to asthma respondents experienced on the individual values, related to symptoms are fixed. Whilethe influence of illness perception on symptoms that got significant results was how long the asthma suffered, and theillness perception on causes of asthma that were significant to changes in asthma symptoms. Omega-3 fish oil waseffective in improving asthma symptoms, but the influence of illness perception must also be a concern.